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Ask em' about E911, no problem there either!

-Hal

There has been a lot of talk in telecoms newsgroups about the possible/planned/future govt. regulation and taxation of VoIP services. The moratorium on internet taxation is also due to expire in 2007, so there may well be government interest in imposing some sort of general internet taxation, which may well affect VoIP indirectly.

Government rules are already affecting the VoIP services operationally, such as the proposed FCC ruling on 911 service a few months ago.

They recently added portability, when I first set up my numbers, that was not an option. Posisble spin off from the cell phone industry?

For me it has been win/win. Cheap, reliable and cost effective. I can check voicemails from anywhere I can access the internet, monitor usage on a realtime basis and add lines in a few mouse clicks.

As far as taxation goes its sort of inevitable the the government catches on and ruins a good thing, but I think Vonage will weather the tax storm due to the fact that they will have a large subscriber base that will remain loyal when the raise rates.

I had a problem a few years ago with a business number being portable when I moved. I was told the number was not portable because it had the wrong prefix or went to the wrong exchange. To keep the number working I had to pay for service on the old number and new number. All old number calls were forwarded to the new number and I got 2 phone bills. I herd of others in the same situation. I would try to make sure you get a number with the same area code and prefix for your town.

Tom